Christmas Ad Planning in July

Christmas is not the first thing that comes to mind in July. Those reindeer sweaters should stay locked in your attic trunk. We get it. So why would we frost your summer vibe with talk about this year’s holiday season? 

Here are three reasons to begin planning your holiday advertising strategy sooner rather than later. 

1. Robust sales. Barring the unexpected, it’s a good year. Despite concerns about inflation, stagflation and economic indignation, the US Chamber of Commerce predicts that this year’s holiday sales could surpass $957 billion, establishing a new record. The National Retail Federation projects a similar figure of $964.4 billion. 
   
2. Early bird insight. Marketers can and should plan for Christmas early and reward shoppers for acting early. Early bird marketers lock in on “planners who take a systematic approach to holiday buying,” asserts Pinterest (in AdWeek).
   
3. Rise of Gen Z. Pinterest also asserts in AdWeek that Gen Z is “open to trying new brands” and that “they move from browsing to buying faster than other audiences.” 

The most meaningful reward for early holiday season planning is getting out in front of your target audiences. Planning lets you test and learn how your target customers engage with traditional and cookieless ad channels to discover products and purchase. In short, you have time to see what works — and what doesn’t. 

Holidays That Deliver Results

As highlighted in our latest Retail cheat sheet — Personalizing the Shopping Experience Across Today’s Media Landscape — the retail word du jour is, unsurprisingly, personalization. We’ve spotlighted the journey of retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, which experienced a downturn after peaking in the early aughts but enjoyed an uptick in sales by moving beyond imposing a brand-centric concept of physical beauty or affluence. Coach enjoyed similar success targeting Gen Z with “expressive luxury” seen as more “inclusive” than it had positioned itself for years. 

How can other companies tap into this approach for the holiday season? Personalization is powered by first-party data and takes flight with the help of a highly capable, people-based technology partner. Companies can obtain game-changing insights about their first-party data with the right partner. Marketers tap these insights to fine-tune their holiday marketing plans and discover new ways to speak to target audiences, leverage data-agnostic integrations and measure the impact of their upcoming campaigns.

Yet another digital advertising change may accelerate brands’ personalization efforts: the demise of third-party cookies. Third-party cookies were never great for privacy and have impeded personalization in many ways. Consumers have always wanted more control over how they’re tracked and what brands can do with the data they collect. 

The end of cookies (even if Google has again pushed off their final sunsetting date) coincides with the meteoric rise of cookieless channels like CTV and Digital Audio. Of course, television and radio have always played a part in the consumer’s path to purchase. These digitally-focused updates to linear TV and terrestrial radio can yield deeper insights about target audiences to drive personalization and, even better, provide measurable outcomes.  

However, not all ad tools achieve equal results. So, as marketers strategize for their upcoming holiday season campaigns, they need to be mindful of working with a technology partner built for today’s increasingly cookieless media landscape. People-based technology, found in Viant’s DSP, gives marketers a big jump in planning their holiday campaigns thanks to capabilities for identity resolution, omnichannel execution and closed-loop measurement. 

Click here to learn more about how Viant unlocks the potential of your first-party data that will underpin your successful holiday campaigns.